Hat on Top, Coat Below

Smash ‘Em Up

March 2, 2011

Well, here is an entry I didn’t plan: driving home last night I got in a car accident. I am fine, just a little stiff and sore, but my poor car is most definitely not fine. I was stopped behind a line of vehicles, the first of which waiting to turn left, and the person coming up behind me didn’t see that we were stopped and crashed into the back of my car. Fortunately, I’d left a semi-generous space between my car and the SUV ahead of me, and the vehicle that hit me wasn’t going too fast because we’d all been stopped a block or so back for other left turners, so I didn’t get pushed into the vehicle ahead of me. The force of the impact was enough to cause the sunroof window to fly back into its stowed position, though the fuel cutoff didn’t get triggered. I pulled into the side street and the crossover that hit me did too. I noticed the two cars that had caused us to stop in the first place because they wanted to get onto this street both went down a little ways and turned around and went back out to the main road; evidently they didn’t even need to be there, so if they’d known where they were going, none of this would have happened. The other driver had evidently not heard that one shouldn’t admit anything—she immediately apologized as soon as I went up to her window. After we determined we were all fine (me, her, and her dog), I called 911 on my cell to summon the police (first time I’ve done that) and we started exchanging information. The other driver was very sweet, very flustered, and I found myself reassuring her. The police officer showed up pretty quickly; the other driver greeted him by saying “my fault!”, so it wasn’t like the last time I got hit where the other driver tried to blame the road rather than taking responsibility. This being the modern age, I sat in my car and updated my Facebook page with a shot of the error message on my dashboard while I waited for the police officer to do the paperwork. I was able to drive home and didn’t notice any issues with the hybrid charging system, just odd wind noises due to my reconfigured back end.